51: The 3 Mistakes That Keep High-Earners Living Paycheck to Paycheck

0:00Hey everyone, and welcome back to the Rich Habits Podcast, still the number one business podcast. on Spotify. My name is Austin Hankwitz and I'm joined by my co-host Robert Croak. Robert is a seasoned entrepreneur in his 50s with more than 200 million in company exits under his belt and I'm an entrepreneur in my late 20s with a background in finance and economics. Since quitting my full-time job in corporate finance a few years ago, I've built a seven-figure media business and I actively advise some of the most well-known fintech companies around the world. As the show name might suggest, every episode.

0:32We talk about rich habits as they relate to business, finance, and mindset. However, we try and bring you two unique perspectives, one from an industry veteran, which is Robert, and the other myself, someone who's still in the process of building wealth and figuring it all out. Robert, what are we going to be talking about in today's episode? In this episode of the Rich Habits Podcast, we're going to dive deep into why most people live paycheck to paycheck, even the high earners. We're also going to share our tips and perspectives of how to fix these problems if you've fallen victim. Austin, 63 % of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck and 47 % of US adults earning over 100K a year are also living paycheck to paycheck.

1:15So that is a wild number. My mind is blown. Google doesn't lie, but yes, wow. So also credit card delinquencies skyrocketed in Q4 of 2023, the highest rate since 2008. Car loan delinquency rates are also at recent all-time highs. This is not how we want our audience to be living, and we're going to fix that in this episode. You know, Robert, this episode is so important because as much as I want to be mad at the world for these people, inflation, politics, war, etc., our audience are victors. They're not victims, right? They're smart, they're scrappy, and they will continue, no matter what's going on, to inch toward financial freedom despite external factors.

2:00So, Robert, give me mistake number one so we can help our listeners here continue to move in the right direction. Yes. Mistake number one is not having a fully flushed out budget. When I say flushed out, I mean it. And I want us and everyone listening, we've got a new term here that we're going to coin right here on the Rich Habits podcast, and we're going to use it in this episode. And that is an honest budget. In my travels with everyone I speak to weekly, monthly, daily about their financial journeys, I just feel most people don't have an honest budget because they don't really want to know the real numbers.

2:36So we're going to coin that term honest budget. We're going to drill it into everyone's head because I think it's so important moving forward for everyone to understand where they really are. So there's so many friends of mine and followers, they say they do a budget, but after the third week of the month, they get lazy. They only have time to put all the numbers in their head and they aren't actually tracking their spending, or they've never really built it out fully to begin with. Again, the honest budget. When you build your budget at the first of every month, it's important to account for everything.

3:09So here are our top five items that we see people not include in their monthly budget. Number one, lump some items. Make a sinking fund for those big ticket pesky items. Think tires for your car, the water heater goes bad, the dishwasher quits, or even needing a new roof on that house that you thought you were fine for years to come and wouldn't need that roof. That's number one. Number two, medicine. We can never predict when we're gonna catch a cold, we're gonna get sick, something's gonna happen, we might break a leg, who knows? And those are items that just people don't think about. They're never putting money aside for that.

3:50And it's so important to have that be a line item in your budget because the last thing you wanna do is play that softball game and be that weekend warrior and you tear an ACL or something bad happens and you've got something to worry about there medically that the insurance isn't covering. Number three, and I think this one is probably the most glaring one, is cosmetics and hair care. I feel like everyone, when I look at their budget, I'll be like, wait a minute, I don't see anything for hair care. What about the makeup? I always see you have awesome makeup. Why is that not being shown? So I just feel that this is another one of those pesky ones that really adds up.

4:28I don't know about you, Austin, but I get my hair cut every four or five weeks and it's not$20 like the old days and it gets more and more expensive for hair care and cosmetics. And I think that's just such an important one that so many people leave out because it's not top of mind like they're buying something because they're more so paying for a service or it's like they're embarrassed to maybe tell their significant other how much they're spending on that makeup or that hair care product. So I think that's an important one as well. Yeah, really good perspective, Robert. And I think the common theme here over the last three call outs you've had is this idea of a sinking fund.

5:04People listening right now will probably ask themselves, what the heck is a sinking fund and how do I budget for that? Essentially, let's use makeup, for example. Let's say that, you know, every three months you go out and have to buy this foundation or maybe have to get this special hair treatment or, you know, something that's going to cost you$300. Happens every three months, right? Instead of being surprised by it on the third month and have to maybe go into credit card debt because, oh my gosh, I have to come up with$300, what you should be doing is setting aside$100 every month, knowing that it's going to be an expense that comes up.

5:39So when it does come up, you have the$300 handy to go buy it, right? You're putting it into sort of this fund. It's called a sinking fund because it gets bigger and it sinks deeper into the ground as you put more and more money into it, right? But it's essentially a fund of money, like a little piggy bank, a little savings account, right? You just put a little bit of money in for the medicine or maybe those lump sum items. For example, my dishwasher did just quit, but luckily I was able to set money aside every month knowing that my housing expenses are going to continue as my house gets older.

6:06I need to repair things, right? So I set aside a couple hundred bucks a month for that. But cosmetics are a very, very easy one for people to really nail down that sinking fund with. Now, the next two budget items people always forget about, including myself, are pet care and taxes. Oh my gosh, pet care. My dog just had an abscessed tooth during the summertime last year. And I had to come up with$1 ,200 on the spot to make sure that she was fine. I know we all love our furry friends. So have that sinking fun ready. Make yourself a little pet piggy bank, if you will. Put a couple hundred dollars into it every month.

6:38Maybe$10 or$20,$30, whatever you can afford. Knowing that you do need to take the dog or the cat or other animal that you might keep in your house to the vet for that one moment every year. That just always seems to happen. The last one I talked about there was taxes. Everyone accounts for their federal income taxes because they're always withdrawn from our paychecks. But a lot of people forget about the state and local taxes that might come along, especially if you own a small business or you're a side hustler, right? And then we go to Uncle Sam, we're like, hey, where's our refund? And they're like, actually, you owe us money.

7:08And it's just like, whoa, what? Shopping is hard, right? But I found a better way. Stitch Fix online personal styling makes it easy. I just give my stylist my size, style, and budget preferences. I order boxes when I want and how I want. No subscription required. And he sends just for me pieces, plus outfit recommendations and styling tips. I keep what works and send back the rest. It's so easy. Make style easy. Get started today at stitchfix.com slash Spotify. That's stitchfix.com slash Spotify. Yeah, and all of this is what really leads to that perpetual cycle of people using their credit cards for unexpected debts.

7:47And that's why having this honest budget is so important. So let's go into a pro tip that I think is very important. If you're a small business owner or a side hustler and you don't have a bookkeeper, we recommend maybe using a platform like kick.co because it's really great if you're a self-driven operator. So if you're not a small business owner or a side hustler, we recommend using Copilot as your budgeting app. This allows you to sync up your bank accounts, credit cards, pretty much everything, ensuring accountability and success every single month. Very important for you guys to look at these two platforms because we both use them and think they're great for people as they're coming up in their financial journey and to keep you in line every month.

8:33Because again, we don't know when these lump sum accidents are going to happen. We don't know when the water heater is going to go out or the tires are going to go bad or whatever. and the biggest thing we want to prevent people from doing is then throwing it on a credit card, perpetuating more credit card debt that's going to be carried in a balance. Very, very important. And to your point about Copilot allowing you to sync up your bank accounts and credit cards and everything in between, right? And what's really important here, Robert, for people to understand is the accountability side of the equation, right?

9:02I fall victim to it. I've got my little manual budget. I swipe my debit card or my credit card or do whatever. And then I have to like go into my Excel spreadsheet and type it in. Sometimes I get lazy and I forget to do that or I might be in a rush or something. But when you have a co-pilot, I think Mint just shut down, unfortunately, but there's these other budgeting apps out there. Again, I like co-pilot. You might like something else. But if you have something that automatically syncs with your spending, your bank account, your credit cards, everything, it automatically does it for you. You're never going to miss a transaction or a budget item.

9:30It's just so, so important to automate the process to keeping you accountable. Yeah. And one of the items that I think a lot of people miss on top of this list, as I'm sitting there going through the issues I deal with is those yearly renewals. Think about it from a standpoint of how many softwares we use that are$289 a year,$400 a year, whatever it might be. And you're not seeing it monthly in your budget because you paid it a year in advance. That comes up and all of a sudden it pings into your account and you're like, oh crap, I need$400 for that. And you didn't budget for that item. So I think it's just really important for everyone in this episode to think about that honest budget and really flush out every little thing.

10:10I would spend a couple hours going through all of your bank accounts or any bank accounts, making sure you're checking every single expense that you have monthly, yearly, weekly, and just really creating that budget to take care of those items and account for it. So that leads us to number two, and this is a big one, relying on credit cards for your monthly cash flow. I see so many people do this. And as I shared earlier in the episode, credit card delinquencies have skyrocketed by 50 % in 2023, the highest rate since 2008. Not only does this mean people continue to go deeper and deeper into credit card debt, it also means they can't afford to pay it down and they're trapped.

10:49We use credit cards. We know how to use credit cards. We spend on them. We pay them off in full every single month and we reap the cash back and rewards. However, not everyone is a credit card person and not everyone has the discipline to do so. Some people use their credit cards as a crutch to their daily and monthly spending, furthering themselves into high interest debt. And here's a key factor. 46 percent of U.S. credit card holders carry debt from month to month for everyday expenses. So getting stuck in this cycle happens to the best of us, but you have to find a way out. Let's talk about that, right?

11:30If this is you, you're stuck, here's what you need to do. First, create the honest budget we just talked about in part one of this episode. Don't forget those five pesky line items that we mentioned. Next, I need you to do the math. How much do you make per month? How much do you spend per month and figure out the difference? If you're in the positive, congrats. Invest the money, pay down debt, whatever. But you might be in the negative. If that's you, calculate exactly what the negative difference is. And now finally, make a plan to earn your way out. Drive for Uber. Pick up extra shifts at work.

12:03Walk some dogs. Do whatever you can do to earn the difference to break even every month, ensuring you're no longer going deeper and deeper into credit card debt to sustain your life. Because the deeper you go, the bigger your monthly interest payment's going to be, making it harder and harder for you to dig your way out of this high interest credit card debt. And lastly, stop relying on high interest credit card debt to live your life. I'm going to say that again. Stop relying on high interest credit card debt to live your life. Stick to your honest budget. Use that co-pilot app we talked about or do anything else you can to ensure you're not going further into credit card debt.

12:43This is mission critical to get you on the right track for financial freedom. And it's mission critical, Robert, because we say this all the time, you can't out invest high interest credit card debt, right? We talk about positive arbitrage on our money. I've got a 3 % interest rate on my mortgage. So if I can earn 10%, 12 % investing in the markets, then why pay off my mortgage early? There's all these different things we talk about. But if you have a 30 % interest on a$50 ,000 credit card balance or even$10 ,000 credit card balance, you can't out invest that, Robert. I mean, maybe you're lucky and you can pick some crazy stocks, but the market goes up eight to 10, maybe 12 % per year now.

13:19And it's just not, you can't do it. Yeah. This really comes down to what we talk about as well all the time is that I think so many people in their financial journeys just believe that they can kick the can down the road continually and eventually they'll catch up. And most times they just don't. And that's why the percentage of people living paycheck to paycheck keeps growing. And that's why we're here to fix it. And that's why the Rich Habits podcast, we break down all of these issues on a daily, weekly basis to make sure to help everyone understand how to fix these things. So that leads us into mistake number three of putting too much of your money into big ticket depreciating items.

14:00Starting with your cars, you get tricked into thinking that that 2 % interest on your new car was a good idea when actually it's already depreciated in value by 20 % and you're paying $726 every month to own it, not including gas, maintenance, and insurance. In 2019, only 4 % of car loans had monthly payments of above$1 ,000. As of October, that number has skyrocketed to 18 % of buyers. That's nearly one in five car owners having a payment above$1 ,000. So this reminds me, Austin, I was watching an interview with Caleb Hammer and the guy who he was talking to that had a car payment of$1 ,200 a month, a truck payment, a Ram truck.

14:48And his justification was that he does towing as a side hustle every couple of weeks to pay for the car. I'm sorry, Austin, but if you're not making money hand over fist towing as a side hustle, there's no reason you should have a$1 ,200 a month car payment. And I think this guy even alluded to the fact that he's only making 60k a year, which is crazy. People don't buy the luxury items first. Don't do that. Get your base set financially first, because having these thousand and twelve hundred dollar car payments when you only make 60k a year is just ludicrous and financial suicide. I could not imagine having a one thousand dollar plus car payment every single month.

15:32And now that's one in five of all car loan borrowers. Oh my god. And sure, I mean, I guess you could argue the fact that cars have gotten more expensive, but also it's like, just drive a used car. Like, I don't know. It's just, it blows my mind. Now, cars are the easiest category for us to identify with this mistake, right, of putting too much of your money in big ticket depreciating items. But other items include luxury clothing, those new shoes, literally anything with a motor or wheels on it, like the jet ski in your garage or that motorcycle that's been collecting dust. These are all depreciating assets.

16:07Now, a good rule of thumb that I've heard is you shouldn't have more than half of your annual take-home pay tied up in cars. So if you and your partner are taking home$150 ,000 per year as a household, you shouldn't have more than$75 ,000 in car value sitting in your garage because it's like, wait a second, I've got 150 grand that we're taking home and half of that is going down in value in the garage because I'm driving it. You're driving your retirement, dude. You're driving your retirement. That's what you're doing. Yeah, Austin, as we say all the time, it's better to be rich than look rich.

16:41And I just feel that the first biggest mistake people make in their financial journey is buying that luxury car that eats up so much of their investable capital every month. So instead of, and here's an easy way to look at it, instead of that$1 ,200 a month car payment, maybe opt for the$400 a month car payment and then invest that$800 and max out that Roth IRA. Because at the end of the day, I'm not saying people shouldn't have nice things. I've always had nice things. I enjoy nice things just like the next person. But you also have to make sure to pay attention to your wealth building and making sure you're putting money aside.

17:15And like we said, not kicking everything down the road for years and years, because you will end up in that perpetual trap of high interest debt and lifestyle creep to where you're not putting aside enough to have financial freedom later on. I couldn't agree more, Robert, and just kind of do this as an exercise. When you're walking around your neighborhood, you're going to the grocery store, you're driving around town, I want you to count five cars around you, five houses in your neighborhood, five people in the parking lot. One in five of those cars has a car payment over$1 ,000 a month, which is mind-boggling to me, right?

17:50So just like what Robert said, right? Don't drive your retirement, actually invest toward your retirement. Instead of that$1 ,200 car payment, maybe opt for the$400 car payment, go drive that RAV4, maybe drive the Ford Escape, whatever you want, but opt for the$400 car payment and invest that$800. You can max out a Roth IRA every single year with$800 extra per month. So, you know, everyone, what a great episode here on the Rich Habits Podcast to better understand now as we enter 2024, how to identify and prevent the mistakes that most people make here that are living paycheck to paycheck, even the high earners, right?

18:24Not having a fully flushed out budget. Robert introduced the honest budget, the rich habits, honest budget. We're going to coin that term and we're going to give it away. We're going to figure out a way to create a cool digital download, give it to you guys here for free in the coming weeks. So stay tuned on that, but flush out that honest budget. Make sure you're being honest with yourself. Second, do not rely on credit cards for your monthly cashflow. Figure out a way to earn the delta yourself. So you're not perpetually going deeper and deeper into debt. And then mistake number three, of course, we just talked about putting too much of your money into these big ticket depreciating items like cars, shoes, clothing, jet skis, motorcycles, boats, anything that goes down in value.

19:03You want to be putting your money into assets that increase your net worth, not pull it down. Okay, Austin, before we jump into the rest, let's give a shout out to our sponsor. This episode of the Rich Habits podcast is brought to you by Neos Investments. Neos offers ETFs that aim to offer monthly income while providing core portfolio exposure across equities, fixed income, and cash alternatives like T-bills. Their ETFs might be particularly interesting for folks looking to generate passive income inside of their investment portfolios. They even offer ETFs that provide exposure to the S &P 500 or the NASDAQ 100 index while aiming to offer high monthly income beyond what investors would receive from plain exposure to the index.

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20:24An investment in NEOS ETFs involves risk, including possible loss of principal. The equity securities purchased by the funds may involve large price swings and potential for loss. A fund's income may decline when yields fall. Fixed income securities will decline in value because of an increase in interest rates. As a reminder, everyone, NEOS ETFs introduce a new ETF, QQQI, to track the total performance of the NASDAQ 100. It just came out last week. If you've not yet watched the replay of the webinar we did with the NEOS team, there's going to be a link in the description below. We talk about QQQI, we talk about SPYI, and you'll even watch me invest$2 ,000 into QQQI in real time because I love monthly passive income.

21:05Now, with that being said, Robert, let's jump into our first question. This question comes from Camden. Camden says, I'm a 20-year-old blue-collar worker getting into investing with a dream of dipping into real estate in the near future. I have all my money in ETFs and I'm nearing$20 ,000 total. I have no clue where to look when it comes to buying my first real estate property. I was hoping you could provide clarity and a good path to help me move forward in my real estate investing journey. Robert, you want to take this one? Well, Camden, great question. Yes, I will definitely take this one. Congrats on being 20 years old and having$20 ,000 already saved up.

21:41I'm a little confused. It says you have all your money in ETFs, so I'm hoping you have some of that put through the Roth IRA. If not, we should definitely get you on that path. But if you're looking for that first real estate project, I would say it starts with getting all of your ducks in a row and qualifying and making sure you have everything ready to get that first loan, that mortgage. And I would use the Fannie Mae 5 % loan. What that means is you can right now, if you qualify, get a mortgage for 5 % down up to$1.3 million, up to four doors, which means we want you to house hack and get that duplex, triplex, or fourplex.

22:20And the qualifications aren't that difficult. So that's where we want to start. Once you get that in order and you know you qualify and you know how much you qualify for, then you can start that search. And how I would do that is pick the neighborhoods, pick the areas that you know, maybe you work in or that are gentrifying and are building up right now and go out and start that property search because you know how much you can borrow. You know where you're at in the loan process. So now you can go out and start flushing out those properties. And I would just start with Zillow. That's one of the easiest ways to do this.

22:55Get on Zillow. You know, you can draw your little map on Zillow where you want to look. It'll show you all the properties. make a list and start driving for dollars. Drive the neighborhoods, look around, go see these properties, and that'll be the best way to get you started in understanding what you can buy, what you should buy, and where you can buy. All very simple once you learn the process. And Camden, just to give you some perspective here from my experience, I bought my first house when I was 24 years old. I used the 3.5 % down FHA loan, and I purchased a$280 ,000 townhome in the outskirts of Nashville, Tennessee.

23:34Total out of pocket for me was I think$10 ,455, somewhere in that range, about$10 ,500. That's how much money left my bank account to buy this house. The next day I woke up with a mortgage and I've since been able to get rid of PMI with that mortgage, which is great. But Camden, from your perspective here, man, you have more than enough money to do what Robert said to maybe even if you wanted to not house hack, you could also just get roommates, charge them rent, and then eventually rent out the whole house as you move on to your next property, which is what I've done. So there's a bunch of ways to tackle this, Camden, but the best and most important part is what Robert was talking about, and that is understanding your buying power, understanding what the loan process is like, making sure that you can get financing.

24:12Something too that's really important, Robert, that we've not talked about with Camden here is the credit score. Camden, you're 20 years old. If I were you, I would start definitely doing everything right to start building my credit score so you can get a very competitive interest rate on your mortgage. My interest rate on my mortgage, the first one I got was about 3%. And the reason for that is because I had a 750, 760 credit score, right? I was very meticulously trying to build that. So Camden, I would also now think about like, okay, you've got the money set aside, but do you have the purchasing power in the sense of a good interest rate, the good financing, have a good loan officer in your corner, right?